As a resident of San Francisco—the tech hotspot of the world—one gets used to seeing new apps and gadgets roll out months before anywhere else.
KITT in Knight Rider. The DeLorean in Back to the Future. Even James Bond’s fully loaded Aston Martin. Cars with high-tech gadgetry, once only props made for the silver screen to depict transportation of the future, have arrived. I wanted to taste the future on the first day of 2025, and so I decided to take my first ride in a robotaxi.
As a resident of San Francisco—the tech hotspot of the world—one gets used to seeing new apps and gadgets roll out months before anywhere else. Tesla unveiled its all-electric Roadster for the public to purchase in 2008 here and thus paved the way for environment-conscious consumers to drive an electric car of their dreams.
Fast forward to today, almost every major car manufacturer has an electric or hybrid vehicle on its roster. The next step in electric car evolution is the robotaxi, with companies such as Alphabet’s Waymo and General Motors Cruise leading the way to offer passengers a fully autonomous car-hailing ride that can be booked through a smartphone.
Robotaxi safety concerns
Author Vicki Abary-Farol and husband Jofer Farol chose to ride a Waymo to a New Year’s Day party because absolutely no one wants to be the designated driver on New Year’s Day.
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, established Waymo as an independent self-driving company in 2016. In 2017, it began beta-testing autonomous ride hailing in metro Phoenix, Arizona, making it available to Phoenix passengers by 2020. Waymo launched its Trusted Tester program in San Francisco in 2021 where only employees and selected testers were able to try out the service.
You couldn’t miss seeing a Waymo on the streets: a sleek white Jaguar I-PACE vehicle outfitted with big cameras on its hood and side bumpers. During this time, Waymos still had drivers sitting in the driver’s seats. “We’ve been operating in San Francisco for years now, deliberately scaling our service over time. With tens of thousands of weekly trips, our Waymo One service provides safe, sustainable, and reliable transportation to locals and visitors to the city alike,” the company announced in its website blog post.
General Motors’ Cruise also became available on San Francisco roads, but in October 2023 a Cruise vehicle was alongside a driver that hit a pedestrian in the Cruise’s pathway. The autonomous vehicle’s sensors did not detect that there was a human underneath it and dragged her more than 20 feet as it pulled up to a curb. Cruise recalled its 950 vehicles from the roads. To make matters worse, the company lied about this in its report to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and in October 2024, the Department of Motor Vehicles suspended its license. By December 2024, GM announced it was pulling funding out of Cruise, rendering its business officially over.
The Waymo One service became open to the San Francisco public in June 2024. Since then, more and more Waymos are visible on the streets, but it’s discombobulating to pull up at a stop light next to a car with no one inside it. Much like not downloading the new OS on my iPhone until the bugs got worked out, I had no inclination to hop into one after reading too many stories about autonomous vehicle incidents. It was only after being asked if I had taken one by yet another visiting friend that I decided I was ready to try it—as if it were a tourist attraction like walking on the Golden Gate Bridge.
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Easy booking
Like other ride-hailing apps, all I had to do was download the app, set up my information, then decide on a destination. We chose to ride one to a New Year’s Day party at The Midway, because traffic would be light and absolutely no one wants to be the designated driver on New Year’s Day.
We planned to get dropped off at a friend’s home in the Mission before heading to the venue together. It took around 2-3 minutes for my ride to get accepted, and it was estimated to be $25 for the trip. Once accepted, the app informed me when my Waymo One would arrive and that it would wait for us for only 2 minutes.
With 5 minutes to go for our Waymo to arrive, I got a call from my friend asking what time we would arrive at the house. When I told her 30 minutes, we decided it would save time to meet at The Midway instead. I was able to edit my ride to the new address through the app.
In-car experience
The Waymo One is easily recognizable and I saw our ride approach us before it pulled over to the curb for us to get in. Through the app, I pressed the Unlock Door button to gain access inside.
Only a maximum of four passengers can ride in the Waymo: one in the front passenger seat and three in the back seat. Once in the car, I hit the Start Ride button, and the Waymo drove off. The Waymo Driver introduced itself and urged us to buckle our seatbelts. I was busy taking videos of the car driving itself, so it started giving off an annoying pinging sound until we fastened our seatbelts. Other than that, the ride was comfortable with its all-leather seats and ambient music playlist.
The touchscreen inside the car allows passengers to change the music, adjust the temperature controls, and see different map views of the route taken. Information on the vehicle included that it had microphones and cameras inside the car, so best not to do any funny business inside during your ride.
My friend called again, changing plans that they would go to another party first and that we should meet them there instead. My husband decided to tap the Pull Over button in the car. Our Waymo pulled over to the side of the road safely, but then the only options from there was to either end the ride or cancel the pull over. I canceled the pull over, and through the app I changed the address to the new club venue, which estimated a new fee, and the Waymo One began driving again.
Two minutes later, we got a call from our friends we were supposed to meet at The Midway, complicating plans even further. Thankfully, using the Waymo edit function was super easy and I just re-selected The Midway as our final destination, and the app adjusted its fee once again.
We arrived ahead of schedule, and once there, the Waymo Driver announced: “We’ve arrived. Please check your surroundings before exiting the vehicle and remember to close the doors after you exit.” I pressed the End Ride button and the doors unlocked. Once we were safely out, the Waymo One drove off.
Final thoughts
The beauty of using Waymo is that I didn’t have to worry about dealing with an irate human driver who would have totally gotten frustrated with all our route changes. The app charged me a minimal fee for each route change, presumably because of the distance. The car’s handles are flushed so nobody can open the doors from the outside without the app, making me feel very secure. I have peace of mind knowing that Waymo has undergone 40 million miles of autonomous driving, serving over 30,000 passengers in San Francisco alone.
We arrived ahead of schedule, and once there, the Waymo Driver announced: “We’ve arrived. Please check your surroundings before exiting the vehicle and remember to close the doors after you exit.”
Our vehicle used side streets to get to our destination, surprising my husband—a born and raised San Franciscan. When a pedestrian entered the crosswalk across our path, it sensed her and braked appropriately. As the company site says, the Waymo is never tired or distracted, 24/7, and best of all it sources 100% renewable energy from the City’s CleanPower SF program, helping curb carbon emissions by 570,000 kg.
Sustainability and a strong and strategic push for road safety will keep robotaxis like Waymo One in business, and competitors such as the Amazon-funded Zoox are hot on its heels. I had such a pleasant experience riding with Waymo, I may never hail another Uber ride going downtown again. Who needs small talk anyway?
